Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

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It's not necessarily that simple.

You're assuming the best possible implementation of autonomous car will be the one which actually arrives on the roads. Given the daunting complexity necessary to even make that feasible,it would surely be the first system of its kind and scale without a considerable number of flaws due to bad programming, exploits, cost cutting, unforseen consequences, etc.

The more 'intelligent' and 'autonomous' the cars are, and the more of them there are on the road, the more likely it is systemic problems will arise. This is not a criticism of the idea of autonomous cars but just an inevitable result of complex systems interacting. Just because they're computers, doesn't mean they won't fail, or that accidents will be so rare as to be not worth considering. Airplanes almost never crash now compared to a century ago, but that doesn't make worrying about air safety, or the affect of automation on pilot competence in the event that manual control becomes necessary, a red herring.

There's only two systemic problems in the current road system that I know of: traffic jams, and the fact that increasing road capacity increases road traffic (and therefore doesn't reduce the potential for traffic jams). They're entirely due to the behavior of human drivers (given the surrounding circumstances in part too, of course).

Are other systemic problematic effects known in the current road transportation system? Notably, are there any systemic effects that lead to increasing speed and accidents, rather than traffic jams (not that traffic jams don't cause accidents, since human drivers are running too fast, not expecting jams).

It seems obvious that the two systemic problems above, won't occur with intercommunicating robotic cars.

It would be "fun" to discover new systemic epiphenomenon with robotic cars, but I would expect them to be more discreet and even less "catastrophic".

You also have to consider potential problems with the cars themselves, in terms of engineering and software, as well as potential issues with networking, weather, inaccurate satellite data, etc. It would be a vastly more interconnected and complex system than the one which already exists.

But you're also seemingly forgetting that cars these days are very safe, with airbags, seat belts, crumple zones, roll bars... this whole 'should it kill you' is not likely an issue these days. Look at all those idiots who crashed their cars going 80mph and lived to tell about it (tesla for example). The point being that if a car controlled the crash, your chances of survival are far better. So it's an option of killing someone or having a controlled crash, not 'kill or be killed'.

Ok, that's fair. The chances of autonomous cars ever being built with fewer safety features than currently exist is pretty much nil.

It seems obvious that the second systemic problem (increasing road capacity increases traffic) is a result of the effect of road capacity on the decision to take trips using a car, rather than the way people drive, and will therefore continue with intercommunicating robotic cars.

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